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gtcorndog: and I'm not saying you HAVE to, but understand it is not the free market that has led to the current standard arrangement of living in cities like Atlanta.
However I would favor a parking tax in the city of Atlanta on surface lots to pay for expansion of transit options for people living within the city.

Just because Atlanta is not a northeastern city does NOT mean that it shouldn't attempt to create a core that caters to more then just the business folks who work 9-5 shifts!

If Atlanta wants to SEPARATE itself from the sunbelt cities, it SHOULD attempt to more replicate the dense northeastern cities more then the other sunbelt cities.

Midtown is getting closer to this goal, but it still has ages to go, meanwhile, downtown is being more and more neglected. Five points is a ****ing dump and the center of a downtown should NOT be that way. This shows Atlanta doesn't give a damn about it's own historic core at all and shows me Atlanta does not want to improve it's core in anyway. Why else do private developers choose NOT to build in downtown? Because Atlanta does not care to improve it in anyway.

Every downtown, northeastern-like or not should be able to be livable. There should be a neighborhood grocery stores...there should be stay open later then 6 pm restaurants..there should be corner stores to pick up some snacks or booze real quick...there should people walking out at night and not worrying about whether or not someone is going to mug you because you are in a deserted city...there should be entertainment centers you can walk to and take a short train/bus ride too.

It's sad and I don't keep bringing up this density praise just so I can praise my ego with Atlanta. It's to legitimately improve this city.

Stop just trying to be a sunbelt city. Hell, so many people here want to claim Atlanta is the "New York of the south"...yet it's urban core is not even a 10th of what Manhattan is, not only in size, but amenities and things happening.

Who gives a damn if the skyline is long....Congrats, you have tall buildings...now where's the density to support life on the ground?

It's ****ing pathetic....it's either live in the suburbs or don't live here at all. That's the impression I get from living here in Atlanta for 8 years now.

I would LOVE to live in a dense Atlanta instead of a dense New York because there ARE things I love about Atlanta more so then New York, but currently, Atlanta does not have what I yearn and desire, thus I'll keep bashing Atlanta, at least until I move out of here, then I over the years, I'll see if Atlanta improves over time, which I'm sure it will. I'm mainly concerned about how fast that change will occur.

Atlanta does not need hyper-density like New York, but density more a long the lines of a constant 20k-40k psm in the urban core would be more then enough for me.

EDIT: Downtown in 2010 measured approximately 26,000 residents in 4 square miles(I don't know if is including O4W and Castlebury hill, i think it is)....that is roughly 6k psm....now imagine if it was 5x that, downtown Atlanta streets would be much more active day and night, not bustling neccessarily, but at least a little more vibrant....

You have a lot of passion about this subject. Where do you live exactly? What is the closest Marta station to you?

Onthemove, the suburbs are as much free market as the urban core is. Each are subsidized by taxpayers. I'd even wager that the suburbs are "more" free market than the urban core. Heck, the suburbs don't pay for non-free market tax subsidized MARTA (not arguing against MARTA in any way here, I love MARTA, just making a point).

I have an honest dumb question, of the 5.3 million people in the Atlanta metro, where do most people live, inside or outside of 285?

over half the population lives outside 285 to the north alone.

The inside 285 population is very low overall.

All of Fulton County in the 2010 census had 920,581 people.
All of Dekalb had 691, 283.

A total of 1,611,864.

Now we would need to do several things to adjust this number... some I can't do easily and some I can.

-There was an undercount, but we can't accurately tell how big. It could have been small. It could have been large, but we removed the projects and alot of low-income families that had their own homes also fled the city.
-A tiny portion of Clayton county is inside 285, but I will entirely ignore it... there is a negligible amount of housing!
-A tiny portion of Cobb is inside 285. Many apartment communities! I don't have any good easy numbers, but its going to be a few ten thousands at least, but likely well under 100,000.
-There are large parts of unincorporated areas outside 285 I don't have easy numbers for!
-We can remove the population from cities in these counties that are not inside 285 easily:

Thats almost in 2 million in smaller suburban counties or exurban spaces.

I'm still fairly confident this is overestimating the population. The amount included in Sandy Springs + unincorporated Fulton and Dekalb outside of 285 is likely to surpass the amount included in Cobb, Clayton, and undercounts in the census.

I mean everyone will think about the new beltline developments... but when you look at other parts of the city its very low-density single family homes. There are also probably fewer kids per average in housing units that help cause this. When we make the existing community spaces and schools more family centric I would expect to see population tick up as more families fill the homes, instead of singles, couples, retirees/empty nesters, etc..

This is all real rough and I might find some ways to readjust for further clarity, but its a good estimated starting point.

gtcorndog: and I'm not saying you HAVE to, but understand it is not the free market that has led to the current standard arrangement of living in cities like Atlanta.
However I would favor a parking tax in the city of Atlanta on surface lots to pay for expansion of transit options for people living within the city.

I understand what you are saying just fine. My point is that it, more times than not, are the people who demand these road projects. The majority tends to get what it wants. That in effect is the free market influencing governmental policies and spending. Is it pure free market? Absolutely not, but there is no such thing as a completely free market. Once the roads or other infrastructure are built, how things develop is pretty free market, however.

So you want to tax the people who likely live outside the city to pay for the lifestyle choices of those who live inside the city? That doesn't seem very equitable.

Onthemove, the suburbs are as much free market as the urban core is. Each are subsidized by taxpayers. I'd even wager that the suburbs are "more" free market than the urban core. Heck, the suburbs don't pay for non-free market tax subsidized MARTA (not arguing against MARTA in any way here, I love MARTA, just making a point).

How do you figure that?

Doesn't it take more resources to send services like electricity and water way out to the burbs vs in a compact area? Not to mentions the extra miles of road that have to maintained and built?

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